Strengths enumerated in 'weak' Garcia case

Solicitor General Jose Anselmo Cadiz went straight to the point in reacting to Monday’s news from the Sandiganbayan. “In the first place, the Second Division did not approve the plea bargain of General Carlos Garcia,” he clarified. “It merely reiterated its approval, made on May 4, 2010, on condition that Garcia surrender P135 million in stolen wealth. It just says now that he has complied.”

Cadiz laid the predicate to the first of many glaring inconsistencies in the contentious plea deal. The P135 million is more than double the P50-million threshold to constitute the heinous crime of plunder. Garcia had offered to return such plunder-size loot as far back as February 2010. So how can Justices Edilberto G. Sandoval, Teresita V. Diaz-Baldoz, and Samuel R. Martires now call the case against him weak?

Cadiz pointed out other discrepancies, which he will raise in a motion for reconsideration:

• The justices ignored the testimony of Audit Commissioner Heidi Mendoza that at least P50 million in Armed Forces funds went missing. As a state auditor seconded to the Ombudsman’s office, Mendoza in 2005 had scoured the military files for documentary proof of plunder. Among the papers she found was Garcia’s diversion into a fictitious budget item of P200 million in reimbursements from the United Nations. The money was deposited in two accounts — one for P150 million, the other for P50 million — in a private bank in Makati instead of the official government depository in Camp Aguinaldo, Quezon City. The P50-million chunk eventually was transferred to another branch, from where it vanished. Still, the justices belittled the direct testimony in 2007-2008 by an expert prosecution witness. They said that Mendoza had been tasked to do a financial audit, but conducted instead a fraud audit, and so was incredible.

When the plea bargain was announced in open court on December 16, 2010, former Ombudsman Simeon Marcelo raised a howl. Allegedly the special prosecutors had mistreated Mendoza. From records, they first made her testify eight times as star witness. Then they called in four of Garcia’s former subordinates at the Armed Forces Finance Center to contradict her testimonies. Cadiz said these witnesses should have been declared hostile and subjected to cross examination, but weren’t. Senator Franklin Drilon said the state should not be bound by the incompetence of its agents.

• The justices also junked their own earlier ruling that spousal privilege did not apply to Garcia, Cadiz said. This is in relation to the two sworn statements that Garcia’s wife Clarita had filed with the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in early 2004. When ICE agents seized $100,000 in smuggled cash from Garcia’s two sons at the San Francisco airport in December 2003, Clarita became frantic. She typed and handwrote explanations of how she and her husband came to own the money. Supposedly they separately received travel and shopping money from foreign military suppliers whenever Garcia inspected factories abroad, approved the contracts, certified the products and released the payments. Garcia also routinely accepted big cash gifts from Filipino contractors. ICE Agent Matthew van Dyke attested to the authenticity of Clarita’s affidavits. When Garcia filed for bail in 2009, the issue of a person testifying against a spouse was discussed. Two of the three justices, Diaz-Baldoz and Martires, said it did not apply since Garcia was not charged with any offense in the US or the Philippines at the time Clarita made the affidavits. Two other justices were called in: one sided with Diaz-Baldoz and Martires, the other with Sandoval; the earlier ruling was carried. In that 3-2 decision, the justices directed Garcia to start presenting his defense because the evidence as rested by the prosecution was strong enough to convict him. Last Monday, Cadiz said, the three original justices reversed the ruling.

• Cadiz also pointed out inconsistencies in dates. On March 16, 2010, then-Ombudsman Merceditas Gutierrez, her deputies and special prosecutors submitted to the Sandiganbayan a proposed plea bargain with Garcia, on grounds that their case was weak. Three days later on March 19, 2010, the same signatories opposed Garcia’s petition for bail, on grounds that their case was strong. Last December 16, 2010, again the same signatories said the case was weak, so they favored the plea deal.

Drilon hinted at an orchestrated acquittal of Garcia. He recalled having suggested to Gutierrez during recent Senate hearings to withdraw their plea bargain from the Sandiganbayan. This was in light of new evidence from three witnesses. Anti-Money Laundering Council executive director Vicente Aquino had sworn that Garcia was able to withdraw P58 million from several bank accounts before the courts could order an asset freeze. Colonels George Rabusa (retired) and Antonio Ramon Lim (active), Garcia’s budget officer and assistant, respectively, detailed before the senators the billion-peso fund diversions into the pockets of selected generals. Common sense dictated that they be presented as well before the Sandiganbayan Second Division. Up to her resignation last Friday, May 6, Gutierrez and company did no such thing.

Drilon said that what the special prosecutors did was manifest before the division that the Senate, not them, had reservations about the plea deal. The word going around was that if they didn’t free Garcia, he would squeal on his principals in the past administration, Drilon added.

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